a magical vacation

I know I know. I haven't updated in forever. It gets so hard! I'm so busy all of the time. Work has been nuts. My schedule changes all the time. But starting next Monday things will be better. I'll finally have my own 10-2 kindergarten with 4 students(all boys!). I'm so happy and excited. That also means I won't have to tutor at night anymore.
Now that summer is over for the kids, I'm having a little more time because I'm not teaching so many extra classes. So here's an update about my summer vacation.

Ryan came to visit for the summer for two weeks. He came right after a quarantine scare. One of my friends went home for a week, she had swine flu when she came back and got a couple of other foreigners sick and a few of her students. I somehow got caught up in all of it and wasn't able to work for a week and a half... even though I had no symptoms. It was a real pain. I was told that I wasn't going to be able to see Ryan for a whole week when he was here. I fought it and eventually my boss gave in. So everything was alright.

Ryan's visit was really nice. It was like having a piece of home in Korea.
We did a lot of hiking, shopping, and had a visit to Seoul.

We went to Seorakssan. Its a really beautiful park.
We took two paths, the first one led to a little temple in a rock.




















The other one was a grueling climb up about a million steps to a tiny "cave" up on a mountain peek. At the top, there was a lady monk sitting around, talking on her phone, and a man peddling wears.

There was a man climbing on that peek, can you see him? crazy!









The cave was almost up in the clouds.



















Another hike we went on was to a place called Mureung Valley. Another really beautiful place. Unfortunately, Ryan lost his shoes while we were fording the river so we had to go back early.

They had a huge flat rock that many Korean families were picnicking on and swimming in the small pools.

There was also a pleasant little temple.

Another naturey thing we did was go to Hwanseongul, the biggest cave in Korea and one of the biggest in Asia. It was amazing. I've never seen anything like it. The hike to the cave was intense, like 45 minutes walk straight up and with about 500 stairs thrown in. We were also the only foreigners in the whole place, got a ton of stares and friendly hellos.































In Seoul we did waaaaaaaay too much shopping, I bought a ridiculous amount of shoes. We also went to the kimchi museum and learned so many delicious facts about the Korean pickled cabbage icon.

Silly photo -op.

Around Gangneung we mostly went out to eat and went to noraebang (karaoke) with my friends.
I also played my first open mic, I did my version of 'house of the rising sun' and 'waltzing to mongolia.' It was terrifying.
I'm glad I did it. I'm playing again tomorrow. I'm doing a goofy song about soju with one of my friends and I'm playing 'mad world.' Hoping I won't be as nervous this time.

Things with school are so-so. We had some trouble getting paid the past 2 paychecks, I think it was just because of having a slow summer enrollment. Its been straightened out. I also finally signed insurance papers, it took getting my agency involved to get them though.
One of the ladies at my school did my nails in a traditional Korea way called bung shu ah(?). Its done with a paste from the forget-me-not flower. Its applied to the nails then wrapped in plastic and left overnight. Or in my case, a full day of teaching. Boy was it hard to work with one hand wrapped up and leaking orange juice everywhere. My kids kept crying "teaachaah ugh guh" and pointed to stains on their books/papers. haha.









My fingers were stained orange for over a week. The color on my nails is supposed to stay till the first snow, if it does.. than it means that my "first love" will be forever. Its also supposed to be good for the nails and good luck. The kids and other Koreans really get a kick out of seeing a foreigner with it, so its also pretty fun and a good conversation starter.

The week before last I went on a trip through adventurekorea.com, so that's going to be the next big post.. stay tuned.

life's a beach

My days have started to blend together here. These past few weekends are all just blurry beachy memories of sunning, swimming, drinking, and BBQing. I love the beach here, it is so beautiful and the water is so clear and its getting warmer. Beach season is starting very soon, so I don't think it will be very peaceful for much longer.
On Sunday, the lifeguards started coming out and blowing whistles and anxiously running in Baywatch style to save people. Beach umbrellas and banana boat rides are also popping up everywhere.

Making it to the sunrise has become a real hobby for me on Fridays. My buddy Tim is always down. This was a special one. We made it and then hopped into a cab for a sunrise swim. The driver dropped us off in the middle of no where, so we had to walk a good ways before we got to the part of the beach that wasn't barb wired off. After taking the picture, we swam out to those rocks and watched the sun come out from behind the clouds.









I'm really surprised how different the water is now that its summer. The waves were really huge and violent the last time I went swimming at sunup about a month ago. I really love living so close to the beach, there is something special about staying up all night with friends until the sun comes up. We pile into a car or taxi and head to the beach, then jumpinto the water to celebrate life and being alive and another day in this beautiful country.



The 4th of July was really good. My friend Chris brought his grill and a bunch of food. His hamburgers are truly works of art. Other than eating, we mostly just sat around drinking American beer and periodically running into the water for a swim or a seaweed fight. At night we shot off fireworks and had roman candle fights.



I also ate a ton of watermelon, I think I've eaten more watermelon in Korea than I have in my entire life. We have it at school just about every other day. There are trucks loaded with watermelons that circle around and around the neighborhood with a loud speaker shouting "SUBAAAN! SUUUUUBAAAN!!" (watermelon! watermelon!) There are many more trucks that sell things like this... there are starfruit trucks, cabbage trucks, knife trucks(really), used clothing trucks (yes,really!), and gaudy hair barrette trucks- just to name a few.

On the Sunday after the 4th, I went with a friend to the beach for some quick swimming and sunning then we went to one of his adult student's house way out in the mountains in the woods.
The house was called "Love House"









It was so beautiful. I want a house like that when I retire. There was a little creek that ran under the patio, the sound of the water was so relaxing.


They had a nice garden, the women invited me in and showed me how to pick more types of lettuce than I ever knew existed.









I got a big bag of that I've been working on eating for dinner ever since. We were suppose to have dinner there, but we had to leave early because of an irrigation problem. I think we will go back again soon though.
The weekend before the 4th was spent entirely at the beach. I am super tan now, I feel like I'm a kid again during those summers when I would turn brown. Don't worry, I am the sunscreen nazi! I just tan easily.

School is going well, I still like being a teacher.
Last week we had a garage sale to benefit New Orleans, every year they do something for charity. I had to give a little talk about it, its still a strange and sensitive topic to bring up. Anyway, it went really well.. we raised 100,000 won for the New Orleans Musician Relief Fund. I'll be able to transfer it over once we take pictures with it and all that junk.









I'm used to my constant schedule changes. Every day its something different or new. At the beginning of July I was supposed to start my own kindergarten with these twin boys, but their mom is flaky so my director decided not to take them. So now I'm to doing whatever odd jobs pop up. Right now my schedule says on Monday and Tuesday I'll teach art to the 2 kindergartens. That's really fun, I like it. I was teaching science too on Wednesdays and Thursdays, a little silly but whatever. But now I'm tutoring the assistant director and the director's sister after lunch instead. Its fun, we laugh a lot and crack jokes. I'm going to have to get a "No Korean" jar that they'll have to deposit 100 won coins into every time they speak Korean though. I'm back to teaching the director's daughter again at night. On Mon and Wed I teach from 9:30-10:30 and Tue and Thur I teach from 8-9. In 2 weeks I'm starting an intensive program with a few of my worst youngest students that will focus on reading and writing. I made the plan all by myself, I'm really proud of it.. I hope it helps them. On that day I'll also start teaching my 3 most advanced students 2 hours in the morning. Phew! and all that will probably change again come August. Then I'll start teaching the director's sister, her daughter, and assistant director for 2 hours every morning, as well as the director's daughter at night for overtime money. Who knows what September will hold for me... I really do wish I had my own kindergartens..
Although, not having to roll into school until lunch time is pretty nice. I like having the mornings all to myself, I have a ton of time for practicing accordion. I'm getting a lot better. I've been working on stuff with other musicians here too as well as slowly writing my own songs. I'm really sticking to my goal of becoming a better musician while here.

On Wednesday night I had a new experience, I went with a girl friend to a jimjilbang. A jimjilbang is a public bathhouse, its divided into a man section, a female section, and a coed section. About $4 gets you in for 24 hours- you can even sleep on one of the floors upstairs if you wanted. You also get two towels to use while there. The first thing you do is put your shoes into a shoe locker, then you take the shoe locker key and bring it to another desk for an everything else locker key. You can also buy soaps, shampoos, and scrubbies for your body and feet at the desk as well as hard boiled eggs, drinks, ice cream, and other snacks. Once you got your key... its nekkid time! Leave one towel in the locker and bring the other with you to the bathhouse. Next you go to the sitting shower section, grab a seat and a fill up a bowl with water. You absolutely, positively must spend at least 15-20 minutes washing your body with soap before getting into the hot tubs and cold pools. The pools are really nice, there are several hot ones and some cooler ones, as well as 2 saunas. If you feel like dropping an extra $12, you can get a large, cross-eyed ajuma garbed in a sexy bra and panties to scrub you down all over your body, wash your hair, give you a facial, and rub you down with oil. $12? How could I resist. It felt amazing, I felt super relaxed afterward. My skin feels amazing, I could see hundreds of balls of dead skin all over while she was scrubbing. The place was really nice, and a total bargain for less than $20.. I most definitely will be back to take full advance of this and every jimjilbang I see for now on.


Only 10 more days until Ryan comes to visit! YAY!

having fun at my school and camping on the beach

The school I work at is really fun. We are always going on field trips and doing special activities.
The week before last we had a "restaurant play." The kids came dressed up in their fancy clothes then they pretended to have a nice dinner with a date.
As art teacher I helped each kid make invitations.


It was sooooooo cute! I can't believe how willing they were to ballroom dance with each other.









Dinner was alright. The first course was vegetable soup, followed by an assortment of some of the kids favorite foods: chicken nuggets, pork cutlet, watermelon, cherry tomatoes, seaweed rice balls, and broccoli. We had banana and strawberry ice cream for dessert.









My date, Rei, is enjoying his soup. The rose came from a different kid, Rei actually got me a really pretty hair blue rhinestone hairclip.










We took a field trip to the beach the following week. It was one of the increasingly rare beautiful days here. I think we are starting to get into the rainy season because its been raining and misting a lot lately. Also its very chilly for June, I'm getting really sick of having to wear a sweater all the time.

The kids played in the sand and we set up a canopy. I built a sand castle then some of the kids helped me decorate it with shells and we picked out which rooms we would have. Mines the big shell at the top but don't tell Steve because he thinks that one is his.



Stephanie's girls playing with sand toys.


A girl from Chris' class got buried.










Steph dug a hole to Canada.



We ate watermelons and cookies for snack. Then we took the kids to get their feet wet in the water. Lots of people got soaked, I stayed far away from it though! Wet socks.. no thanks.



The weekend before last I headed down with my scooter gang to Sokcho, its about an hour and a half cruise from Gangneung. I would say Sokcho is kind of like our little sister city. Many of the people from here and there do things together. Sokcho is a neat little town, its almost half the size of here and is going through a lot of development. It reminded me a little bit of Florida.
My gang brought a tent, hamburgers, a grill, jello shots and a ton of stuff. We brought the party! My buddy Chris makes the 2nd best hamburger ever, only Mr Joe's hamburgers are better.

The tent is really nice. I love how you can camp on the beach here and also grill. No one ever comes to bother you or yell at you. I slept in the tent with the gang. When I woke up there was a strange Korean man who had stolen my blanket sleeping next to me. Normally something like that would freak me out, but in Korean it is just too typical. Would have actually had been surprised if some random Korean guy hadn't come into our tent in the middle of the night and passed out after taking my blanket and burritoing himself in it. He bought us all "honey water" in the morning though, honey water tastes actually how it sounds and it does wonders for hangovers.











It was a really crazy good full moon kind of night. One of the gang lost his keys in the sand, and that really sucked. He had to take the bus home and get his extra keys then go back for his scooter. Poor guy.

In the morning I started hearing rumors about a Popeyes in Sokcho's Emart. No way that there is a Popeyes in a Sokcho! No Freaking Way! HOW? WHY?! They were lies, I was so sure. Of all places, why would there be a Popeyes in a tiny little 90,000 people fishing town in the middle of no where. I don't even think there is a Popeyes in Seoul!
Well. The rumors were TRUE! There IS a honest to god Popeyes in Sokcho. I had chicken and biscuits, I can't say that it tasted like the Popeyes I know and hate to love but it was pretty good!

Before I had to teach today I went with my Korean friend Danny to get a cell phone!
DEUDIEO! (FINALLY!)
Now I can stay in touch with people better and call for directions when I'm lost instead of having to ask strangers to let me use their phone. The whole process was pretty fun. We went to several different stores before settling on the one with the guy who was most enthusiastic about selling me a phone. The phone I got is really cool and it only cost about $40. I can watch TV on it, yes really. I can watch TV on my phone. I probably will never use that, but I think its so novel that I could. It also has a Korea/English dictionary, does conversions, and has subway maps. It can do MP3 and video. and I have a pet dog on it called 'Disco' who says things like "Don't you like my tail?" It has a camera of course, and photoshop like software.